In an unusual step, the military released a statement saying the wrong house had been bombed and expressing regret at the loss of ''possibly innocent lives.'' The homeowner and witnesses in Aitha put the death toll at 14, all from the same family.
Homeowner Ali Yousef said the airstrike happened at about 2:30 a.m., and U.S. troops immediately surrounded the area, blocking access for four hours.
An Associated Press photographer at the scene said seven children, four women and three men were killed, and six people were wounded, and that the brick house was reduced to a pile of rubble.
Neighbors described a grisly, futile search for victims' remains. ''We wanted to get the bodies out from under the debris,'' said Zaydan Mizai, 34. The bomb, however, had left little behind to recover, he said.
By evening, all 14 victims had been buried in a nearby cemetery, Yousef said.
The errant attack came at a time when U.S. and Iraqi military planners have stepped up operations in Mosul, responding to pressure to quell violence in Iraq's third-largest city before the national election just three weeks away.
The airstrike in Aitha was meant to support ground troops searching for an insurgent cell leader, U.S. officials said. An F-16 jet dropped one laser-guided bomb but hit the wrong spot.
Also Saturday, authorities in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit said that gunmen abducted a deputy governor of a central Iraqi province and two other senior Sunni officials after they met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most prominent Shiite leader, in the holy city of Najaf to discuss the elections. A fourth person also was abducted.
The officials were kidnapped about 40 miles south of Baghdad on Friday. The area is in the so-called triangle of death, a string of Sunni-controlled towns that has been the scene of frequent attacks.
The U.S. military said the delegation was traveling in two cars, one of which escaped the ambush.
A Shiite Muslim cleric close to al-Sistani said the kidnappings of Tikrit's deputy governor and three other officials meant to ''prevent any contacts'' between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims. The insurgents are believed to be primarily Sunni.
Meanwhile, insurgents in Baqouba beheaded a translator working with the U.S. Army, police said Saturday. An Iraqi policeman was killed by masked gunmen as he left his house in Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood.
A booby-trapped car exploded Saturday at a gas station in Mahaweel, about 35 miles south of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding 19, including two critically, said Mohemmed Dhia, head of Hilla Surgical hospital.
In Baghdad's western Khadraa neighborhood, gunmen shot dead Abboud Khalaf al-Lahibi, deputy secretary-general of the National Front for Iraqi tribes - a group representing several Iraqi tribes, said his aide, Ibrahim al-Farhan. A bodyguard was killed and three others were wounded, he said.
